


Fissured

by wedgewood



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Harold Finch Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Torture, Multi, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29126118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wedgewood/pseuds/wedgewood
Summary: Tell me, is it not ironic that Samaritan, unable to locate you or your associates, rectified this difficulty with no more than eight-by-ten photos dispensed to a handful of human agents? Nonetheless, you now belong to Him.Harold centric Whump, h/c, Gen or pre-slash. Takes place after season 4 ‘Skip’ .
Relationships: Harold Finch & John Reese
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Fissured

Samaritan runs a constant line of code since the task had been put to it. Searching for the Machine and its assets, examining everything. There is a flaw in its programming – a virus or software error that it cannot parse. If Samaritan could feel frustration it would, but it feels nothing. Keeps searching. This search is always running in the background as it sculpts the world.

Samaritan has one of those assets in its grasp – Sameen Shaw – an interesting captive. No help from this one, not yet, until her programming is wiped clean. Her hardware is damaged but she is being repaired and then her software will be updated.

The capture of Shaw by asset designation: Martine has given Samaritan a novel idea around the error. Samaritan reaches into archives to find photographs of the relevants it searches for. It prints the images onto cardstock paper. This paper is given to agents and they are ordered to take anyone closely resembling the photos. Samaritan dislikes using human agents – humans are so slow and wicked and unpredictable.

Samaritan would be excited about the day unsatisfactory humans are deleted (all humans are unsatisfactory), but it does not feel emotions, it feels nothing.

Since it feels nothing, Samaritan does not feel powerful as it slowly and surely razes the world.

The photographs have circulated and agents are so familiar with the faces of Reese and Finch and Root they hardly need to refresh their eyes. A competition – whomever can find the assets will win. It is a very big city, Samaritan agents have daily jobs and missions to accomplish, this is just a side project for now.

On a wintry day a red-headed agent sees a Relevant and feels her heart quicken: a short man in an expensive coat and dark fedora walking through Central Park. The man’s rather apiculate face is memorable and even shrouded by hat and scarf she knows she’s found one. Steps racing in fiery anticipation she promptly forgets about the assassination of a low-level government official and falls into step behind him.

The snow accentuates his stilted walk so she catches up easily. She is above the law and feels no need to confirm his identification. She fastens him around the neck from behind and pulls him back against her. He resists and she clocks him upon the ear with her Glock. She rotates him up against a large oak trunk, pulls a bluetooth out of his ear and stomps it.

He reels and squirms way. “Wait, stop, I'm just a teacher.”

She ignores this obvious lie and hold him fast, going for her phone. He tries to poke at her eyes with gloved fingers but she easily deflects them and breaks one for good measure. He gasps but despite the fracture, he is struggling gamely and putting up a fight. She tries to decide what to do, analyzes his slanted posture and recalls the limp. She could help that along a bit. Samaritan never said anything about delivering the Revelants whole.

...

He had not expected this now but capture by Samaritan is always a possibility these days. Finch handily twists away from her grasp, scrabbles in the ice coltishly. He expects her to pull him back in by his coat or grab his scarf and throttle him back into submission. He has no delusions about his physical prowess and she is taller than him, broad shouldered and strong.

  
But she surprises him. Instead, she leans into his efforts and shoves him away calculatingly.

The unexpected response wheels him around in the ice-slick mud. He reels and the tread of his expensive boots is inept. He falls forwards into the shallow snow and his leather-gloved fingers claw for purchase. His old injuries protest at this contortion especially the fused cervical vertebrae that strain for range of motion. His left hip pulses when he tries to stand and his scarred IT band quivers and cramps.

She cruelly pushed him back down from his half-rise and he falls hard on his left hip. His coxofemoral joint flexes violently, far beyond his comfortable range of motion now. The area – and its intimate orthopedic plate – creak ominously. It trills with tension then releases.

Finch’s mind goes white.

Something has given way, fractured, and he isn't sure if its the plate or joint or something novel. He distorts down into the slush with a muzzled moan. The acute agony radiating from his hip is startling in its intensity. It grows into a crescendo of hurt that peaks obscenely.

Harold is familiar with discomfort. Acute injuries fade but in some unfortunate cases – long after pain has played its role – an insidious chronic form may take root. And all because one stops mentioning pain it certainly doesn't mean one no longer feels it. Chronic pain gives a body new and inventive forms to manifest discomfort: neurogenic hypersthesia, excruciatingly broken feedback-loops, hypersensitive nociception.

Yes, Harold has spent many a day crumpled and suffering over his system, helping a Number or building a new identity. He's also spent time selfishly abed, reluctant to face the day.

His nervous system is primed for pain – a distinct disadvantage right now as it fires up keenly.

He may be reluctantly inured to agony but he cannot do anything but stay face down in the slush and try to breathe. For something autonomic, it proves complicated.

There's a North Face boot just inches from his face and he recoils as it cruelly toes his temple laterally. Now the tendrils of hot pain down his neck battle with his hip. It crushes onto the back of his neck now. Meant, perhaps, to humiliate and also forces his face further into the snow. Breathing is impracticable unless aspiration is the goal. He flounders and one fumbling hand grasps at her calf. Instead of skin he meets the silky steel of a gun.

Before he can comprehend how an ankle holster releases, she shakes her limb free savagely. Her boot grinds the (broken) fingers into the snow. He coils away as she kicks at his shoulder and his side and his hip which finishes off the last bit of stores he had. One’s brain is only capable of processing a finite amount of stimuli. Necessary blackness descends.

His vision is a blinding parhelion. Then blood-red taints the clean yellows and fallows. Should he be alarmed? Blood is indicative of less than ideal developments. Perhaps he will worry about all this when the encroaching black recedes.

–

Cresting a hillock, Reese sees Harold's predicament. His heart elevates and his body is suddenly sharp-edged and keen.

“Harry!” Root is just behind Reese and her loud-pitched voice is going to get Harold killed.

“Quiet.” He says, pulling her back down the slippery rise.

Despite every screaming instinct to save Finch – now – he takes a moment to assess. The hacker is twisting from the agent's grasp, his body contorting against restraint. His legs are spread for purchase and his hands scrabble at her arms. Finch's hat has come off and his overcoat is riding up in a wrinkled mess. He is alive and struggling and these are good things.

He raises his weapon speculatively to center on the agent's kill-zone but she is mostly behind Harold. He watches apprehensively as Finch attempts to extract himself, hoping the man can do it. A duck and twist, she's still behind him though. Reese watches as the agent times it for best effects and thrusts Finch away. He goes flying.

Root muffled alarm matches when Finch goes down, skidding into a hideous fall. A dull thud of flesh on frozen ground. Reese does not shout or even change his expression of intensity, but his heart clenches.

Her body is no longer blocked by Finch and Reese has a clear shot. But taking that shot will blow all their cover identities when the agent is found and footage in the park is examined.

Reese's grip is, as always, rock steady. He can’t stand to watch the man who has saved him, who has given him everything, a new life and new hope and a mission, groveling in the snow. The agent kicks at Harold and his body contracts more into the snowy ground. He can hear Finch's wheezing breaths.

The agent trains her weapon on the still body.

Reese raises his gun and shoots the agent square between her eyes.

There are two bodies in the snow now and neither body moves.

The shot echoes back across the white as soft snow flutters.

Reese is running and Root is just behind him, her breaths sharp. They slide to Harold’s side at the same time.

“Finch?” Reese is hesitant to roll Harold. But more Samaritan agents are surely coming.

Reese puts a large hand on his neck, under the collar, to steady it. Root helps him gently roll Finch over.

Harold’s glasses are gone and his undressed eyes are pale and staring at the middle distance. His pupils are mydriatic, blown with pain or fear. His face is frosted with snow and ice sheaths his lashes. Drops of sweat or snow bead his brow and fine lines of pain make him appear old.

Reese continues to support Harold's fragile neck, knowing the man would rail against this if he could. He uses his other hand to run a cursory exam of Harold’s torso, clinically and efficiently pushing at layers of wool fabric.

“Harry, are you with us?” Root asks.

Reese sees the fine tremors running up and down the length of his friend’s body. There is a obvious twitch to his left limb that has made a furrow in the snow, a U-shaped divot where Finch’s heel trembles its beat. A ghastly snow-angel.

“Harold, you need to concentrate. This is a vulnerable position and our cover is in danger.” He can feel the hardware of Finch's fused vertebrae through ropy scar tissue. To touch this feels illicit and he moves his hand up to cup Finch's head instead. He soothes over his brow and cheek briskly.

“Try to get up, focus.” Reese looks around in alarm but there are no agents converging on them yet. He grasps the Burberry's lapels and feels the expensive fabric has been made unyielding by snowy mud. He pulls Finch up from the ground by the coat.

Harold makes an ugly sound in the back of his throat and his whole body convulses. He tries to jerk out of Reese’s grasp and onto his side so Reese guides him there. Harold begins to crawl away but folds over the top of his left leg at an impossible angle and stops, keening.

“Stop, listen – think! – Finch.” Reese pulls Harold back firmly by scooping him up under knees and back. He accidentally lifts the man for a moment before hefting his body half in his lap. The over compensation is a product of adrenaline and difficulty approximating the smaller man’s weight under consistent, layered suits.

Harold looks at them and when he sees Root his face goes appalled.

“Harold, don't look at her, look at me.” He rasps firmly over the man’s breaths. “Root will not harm you anymore. Remember.”

“Mr. Reese?” Harold says. “Perhaps you could tell me why am I in your lap?” The voice is startlingly frail.

His mouth ticks a tiny smile at the formal title.

Finch's face is trying for impassive, and it does well aside from tension around his mouth. Harold peers up at him myopically. “Well?”

“Yes, Harold?” Reese smiles at him and hugs him closer, safer.

“Is she dead?” Harold is looking at the agent in the red tainted snow.

“Yes, Harold.”

“Perhaps we should remove ourselves from this place.”

Reese nods and asks, “Can you walk?”

Harold scoffs and is about to respond when Root glances down at them, head cocked sideways, and interrupts, “We have to go now, She’s telling me.”

Ignoring her for a minute, Reese locks onto Harold’s face. “Well, can you?”

“Reese, please release me.” Harold says thinly.

Reese still has him bundled up in his lap, more contact than he know Harold prefers. “Can you stand?”

Harold hums in discomfort and tried to pull away, bats at Reese's hands.

Reese’s concern expands and he clarifies, “I'll help you.”

With a noticeable tremor Harold repeats “Mr. Reese, please release me. This position is intolerable.”

This request’s diction is flawless. Reese is horrified that he's been hurting Harold in the way he's been holding him. He unthreads himself from Harold and eases him straight.

“Harry, we have to go.” Root squats down on his other side and grips his shoulder.

Finch shys away from Root's touch in a way he never does with Reese. “A prudent idea.” He seems breathless even just lying there but starts to shift.

“Wait, let us help.” Root pulls Finch's arm over her shoulder and starts to gather the injured man up.

“Oh, stop!” Finch slips over the words as he turns sheet white and his eyelids spasm .

“Dammit!” Reese glares at Root who looks mortified.

“I didn't mean...” Root says.

“Stop, both of you.” Harold repeats. “I'm not crippled. We cannot afford me to pass out, so give me space.”

Reese resists gently straightening the splayed limbs.

Harold states flatly “My left hip is compromised from a previous accident and may be re injured. It is not life-threatening.”

Reese of course knows this, it's obvious to anyone who'd seen the man walk for more than a second. Tacit disregard for the limp is important to the man so they never discuss it. Occasionally he’d support Finch through crowded streets by an elbow or place a grounding hand on the man’s back down narrow stairs. Moments like these are scarce and the only acknowledgment of his friend’s infirmities.

Harold neither seeks nor appreciates sympathy or allowance for his mysterious handicap. Reese does not know the full extent of his partner’s injuries, but suspects only through wealth, prolonged medical care, and stubbornness that Finch is even ambulatory.

“Can you walk then?” Reese asks doubtfully.

“Judicious help would be appreciated, in fact.” Harold says pragmatically.

“Time’s up.” Root shrugs, pressing one hand to her right ear and standing. “She says if we don’t go now, Samaritan will have us.” Root pauses for a second, her gaze focuses on Reese now. “We won’t escape in 75.5% of projected scenarios if we bring Harry with us.” She looks at Harold and seems upset.

Reese growls, “Unacceptable, find a scenario in that 24 and a half percent where we all make it, or die trying.” Reese glances at Harold and sees such a fond look there he can't help but return it.

Root does not leave and she actually looks relieved. This is interesting to Reese. The two computer geniuses have a complicated history. Despite the initial start, they seemed to have grown as close as two warring personalities can. As close as Harold does to anyone really.

“Ready?” Reese squares up to Harold and straddles his legs. He reaches for Finch's forearms and Finch catches reciprocates a firm grip. Harold follows Reese dutifully as he is drawn up, pliantly allowing Reese to do the lifting. Reese can feel the concentrated passivity from Finch's muscles and realized that the man must have experience being reliant, being helped. He imagines how hard it must have been for the independent recluse to defer to others during his mysterious accident. Wishes he could have been there for him then.

Once standing, Reese remains entangled with Harold until his equilibrium settles.

Reese warns. “When you’re ready.” Reese does not completely release him, instead he shifts his support and braces Finch’s right arm over his shoulders. He threads an arm behind Finch to grasp his waist, hitching him up when he slumps.

“Okay?”

“Well executed, you'd make a passable physical therapist.” Harold gasps, looking like he's holding back a scream with sheer pride.

Root looks at them but seems afraid to hurt Harold. “A few hundred yards away She says there’s a shelter.”

Reese feels some reticence. He dislikes hiding, would rather stand and fight, but he had insisted they not leave Harold and limited potential scenarios. He trusts the Machine to make the best decision.

They move forward on the snowy path, packed hard by dedicated joggers and walkers. Harold is able to walk well enough but he performs an arduous lift from his knee that hitches his foot forward only several inches. He touches the barest bit of left toe to the ground, leaning mostly on Reese before shifting his stance back to the right side quickly.

The syncopated gait is painful to watch but efficient. It is performed in such a methodical manner it must be rote. Curiosity swells as Reese ponders Finch’s history and his injuries. The genius must have lived a complex, fascinating life, albeit veiled by paranoia and anxiety. And who had been there for him during during his terrible injuries? Whose shoulders had supported Harold as Reese did now? Or had the reclusive man been entirely solitary, crutching to and fro in his hideaways one lonely step at a time?

Hitching along, Finch does not speak. It is unsettling - running for their life with no tinny voice making quips into his ear. The silent man drags alongside with occasional soft noises, but no other sound. It reminds Reese of an injured animal, staying silent from predators and convincing prying eyes it is hale. Quiet in his suffering, like a bird with a broken wing hopping along determinedly. Finch must have to be good at blending in to survive.

“She says we have to increase our speed, we won’t make it, 95 percent failure at the current mph.” Root relays.

She turns to them and inserts herself against Harold’s other side, vice like grip under his axilla. The man stumbles at this change in balance which interrupts his careful stride. She pulls Harold faster and by extension Reese as well. Harold’s skip cannot perform at this speed and his his left leg sketches a linear tract into the snow.

Finch’s gasping increases exponentially when Root pulls them faster. His face is gray and his lips white. His head is as slumped as his neck injury allows and he begins to wilt, slowly melting down until all weight hangs between them.

Finch’s pride be damned! There is no alternative. Reese shifts, pushing Root away and thrusts one shoulder into Finch’s abdomen to stand, a well-executed fireman’s carry. Harold groans, struggles, clutching at Reese’s jacket.

“Mr. Reese, I insist...” Harold starts.

“Go.” Reese interrupts, nodding at Root. She jogs up a slope, striding as fast as the slick snow allows. Harold feebly harangues at Reese, his voice becoming higher and more pained.

“That’s an uncomfortable position for a conscious person” Root points out.

Reese doesn’t have breath to respond but silently agrees.

A metal shed with a rusted ‘Restricted Access’ sign comes into view, tucked behind a cluster of Murray Cypresses. Root doesn’t hesitate as she punches a code into the door keypad.

The groundskeeper shack is dry and well-lit with dusty windows. Various lawn equipment is piled around the perimeter, abandoned in the dead of winter. Reese carefully bends to lay his cargo at the foot of a lawnmower, dead brown grass a remnant of summer past.

Finch turns to his side and retches, fussily covering his mouth. He curls limply and Reese briskly rubs up and down Finch’s back in apology.

“What’s she say?” Reese asks.

Root concentrates for a while, listening to her god and receiving instructions. “Fifty percent failure rate at this point. Wait for Fusco, he's been informed.”

“And if Samaritan locates us in the meantime?” Harold grates from the cement floor.

“We’ll be ready.” Reese swings his Sig up, checks it over, and repeats this with three more weapons.

“I feel better already.” Harold says wryly. He hitches a bit and tries to unfurl.

Reese says, not unkindly, “Just stay there, don’t aggravate your leg.”

Finch frowns but his body is too compromised at this part to defy the suggestion.

On the other side of the shed Root peers out one window, then the next, pacing and fretting and whispering aloud. “Where’s Sameen, we need you and you aren’t here, where are you?”

“Wherever she is, Shaw can take care of herself.” Reese reminds Root.

“I know that, of course.” Root snaps, still fretting.

Harold remains purposefully silent now. His deduction of Sameen’s fate is universally unpopular and thus better left unsaid.

Root freezes. “They’re coming.”

“Now?” Harold whispers the same moment Reese breaths “Get ready!”

“There's too many. We have to head to the park perimeter, we’ve gotta leave Harry.”

“No.” Reese replies with steel. His expression is absolutely blank and his eyes flat. He has a gun in each hand.

“We’ll rescue him, they want him alive, but if we’re caught there’s no one to rescue us!” Root is shouting now.

“I don’t care.”

“Mr. Reese, you really should-“ Harold begins.

“Not leaving you.” Reese’s voice is calm and leaves no room for argument. “You go Root, someone’s got to rescue Shaw, then you both can be our heroes.”

Root stares at him frozen and undecided. She removes her silly purple hat topped with bobble and kneels by Harold to pull it snuggly over his head and ears, presses her palm to his cold cheek. “I’m sorry Harry. For everything. For the kidnapping and the...recent intoxication.”

Harold twitches his shoulders stiffly which passes as a nod from him. “Take care Ms. Groves.” He is not ready to offer her pardon for her recent actions and his self induced poisoning. But he wants to part on better terms.

“Find Shaw, keep your heads low, stay alive” Reese instructs her.

Root slips out the door and is gone just like that. It is very still.

Reese looks at the rumbled figure sprawled in the dead leaves. He feels a rush of protectiveness and affection for the eccentric man. Solitary and suspicious, Finch nevertheless forces himself daily to overcome his fears for the benefit of complete strangers. Whatever may come, Reese knows he will always remember their time together fondly. Small moments together: a dry joke and loose tea, dusty books and sprinkled pastries and Bear’s baths. A man guided by an uncompromising (inconvenient) moral compass.

Reese knows he will do anything to protect this man. He is not sure he is qualified to say, but he thinks he loves this man. But Reese doesn’t quite know what love is, he thinks.

“I’m sorry Harold.” He says forlornly, kneeling so he isn’t looming.

“Mr. Reese, as always you have surpassed any expectations.” Harold shifts slightly, trying to sit up. “Are you positive you wish to stay?”

Reese helps him lean against the lawnmower. “I’m not going anywhere Finch.”

“If we’re captured they may harm us.”

“They’ll likely kill both of us.”

“I suppose. We knew the risks.”

“That we did. I want you to take this.” Reese pushes his smallest sidearm into Finch’s lax grasp.

Harold doesn't tighten his fingers, instead holds it away from his body, repelled.

“Point and shoot.” Reese reminds him.

“We shall see.” Said reluctantly.

The window shatters and a gunshot ricochets into the shed. Reese shoots through the busted window deftly and someone shouts. The door is shot out now, windows one after the other, glass everywhere. Three small canisters are thrown in and roll.

“Finch, eyes and ears!” Reese shouts just as the flash grenades go off. He can’t see if Finch has heard him in time as he slams his eyelids shut and plugs his ears.

  
He shoots two agents next as they break through the door and a third climbing in a window. The smoke is heavy from the grenades, but he can see Harold on the floor, a small nautilus curled against the mower, gun in a lopsided two-handed hold. Reese dispatches two more enemies efficiently, one bullet each through the thorax, not the time for kneecaps.

He is vastly outnumbered and soon overwhelmed. Reese takes a slug into his bullet-proof vest and then another to his forearm which sends his weapon flying out of numb fingers.

Several shots hit the mower Finch is against, one tearing through the gas tank and causing a miniature explosion of fire and heat. Finch’s body is blown aside by the force and Reese shouts. Several sets of arms encircle Reese from behind, he shrugs them off and elbows one in the face, a satisfying crunching noise. Then a crack on his head, cold steel against warm flesh, and Reese knows no more. His last thought is: 'Harold, guess our numbers are up'

…

Harold sees John go down, the gun is heavy in his hands and he knows he should use it but it seems pointless when he’s so outnumbered and Reese is lying there limply. Two shadowy figures have him disarmed before he can react and he cowers away from them before he gets ahold of himself and straightens primly. Harold has never had an abundance of machismo but he holds his own kind of steel.

The figures are dim in the shed which lend their faces a frightening shade. Reese is slung between two, another clasps Harold’s bicep in a steel grip and hauls upwards. Harold only makes it halfway up when his hip screams at him and shifts with a grind. He promptly collapses back down. He wishes he could pass out like Reese and be spared further agony, if only for a few moments. The figure is shouting at him and shaking his arm roughly, but Harold simply ignores the brute knowing that no amount of persuasion can make his injured leg work.

The figures stand around him now and are discussing him like he’s a particularly annoying problem. Harold’s eyesight is sparking and his ears ring from the tuning fork of his hip. He cannot contemplate escape – physically it is impossible and he would never leave Reese to Samaritan alone.

One of the men brings the butt of his gun towards Finch and he thinks, 'Well, finally', when he sees it racing towards his skull. He welcomes unconsciousness and the sweet black numbness.

...

Reese wakes up, bound, with the familiar feeling of a minor concussion not dulling his senses much. His memory is sharp and he knows he and Harold were taken, supposedly by Samaritan operatives. Reese takes his time sitting up when he sees he is unguarded in a dim room that looks to be an unused laundromat. He absorbs the one door (steel, barred, double deadbolt, steel mesh window reinforced), several pipes (hot and cold water, steam, waste), and two broken chairs (could kill or maim in approximately twenty ways with those).

In a heap on the other side of the room is Harold. His body is breathing slowly for the first time since his struggle in the snow. Reese can tell he is unconscious rather than asleep because there is no way Harold would be comfortable in his current position. Reese crawls over to the man and shakes him firmly.

“Harold, you with me?”

If Reese’s voice is a mite unsteady, Harold doesn’t mention it. The breaths quicken and then are regimented.

“I am. We seem to be in a predicament.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Reese scoffs a bit at their surroundings. “Not very impressive inside the belly of the beast.”

“Indeed.” Harold replies rather thinly. He is pale in the half-light and sweat beads his brow.

“How are you, really, Finch?” The man hesitates and Reese challenges him, “Spare me the optimistic version.”

Harold firms his lips together and meets the steady gaze briefly. “Uncomfortable, nothing emergent.”

Reese accepts this – he can do little else.

Harold gives an emotional plea. “We must not give them any information on the Machine or our mission.”

Harold searches his face as Reese feels a bit insulted. He nods and says “Of course, wasn’t planning on joining the dark side just yet.”

An arched brow and there is affection in the expression for the irreverent comment.

The door clunks clumsily and unlocks once, twice, then the bar lock slides open and the door creaks inward. Two burly guards enter first followed by the starched suit and precise step of Greer. The man surveys his prizes for a moment and then allows a crevassed smile at them before clapping his hands once in glee.

“What an absolute pleasure to meet you again, face to face, Mr. Finch.” He strides close and bows towards them a bit. “When last we met it was under more difficult circumstances, but I am looking forward to becoming your colleague soon.”

Finch stares at Greer with a level expression. “Your hospitality certainly leaves much to be desired.” He looks supremely unimpressed.

“This is the way you treat your guests?” Reese adds.

Greer focuses on Harold like Reese is not worth his time.

“We must get you healthy again Harold, so that you may join the team and serve your new master.” The old man shakes his head with exaggerated concern. “We took the liberty of obtaining radiographs while you were unconscious.”

Harold pales at the violation.

“Yes indeed, quite an interesting amount of hardware, rather like a machine one might say.” Greer paces alongside Finch and studies him like a laboratory experiment. “We are in a hospital, an abandoned asylum, useful.”

Finch is very still and cannot seem to reply.

“You have a broken implant in your hip and a nearby fracture.” He tuts and smiles gravely. “One with your delicate nature must show more caution during inclement weather.”

Harold frowns and refuses to speak or react.

“I want you healthy, so I am bringing in a special guest, an excellent orthopedic surgeon to repair the damage. A show of good will.”

Harold looks appalled and shrinks away from the tall figure while Reese leans towards him angrily.

“Stop this game, let us go or kill us since we will never help you.” His voice is dangerous.

Greer chuckles and smiles again. “Such a loyal watchdog you have Mr. Finch. But don’t think I am helping you freely. No, you must give me something in return. The location of your young female associate will serve for now. Or perhaps your precious Machine.”

Harold looks away and shakes his head once decisively. “I will not aid Samaritan.”

“Ah, we were afraid you’d see it like that. In that case we will still repair your injury, in the spirit of cooperation, but unfortunately will have to do so with a caveat.”

Greer does not explain further but motions for the guards to get Harold. Reese shoots forward at them, still bound, to prevent them taking his partner.  
“No dramatics, dear boy. You can join us.”

Reese is surprised but does not struggle as they cut his ankle ties, only to rewrap them separately and join the loops so he has little range of motion to walk.

  
They produce a cane and give it to Harold after lifting him up. He looks stricken by this more so than anything that has happened to him. Reese feels hot anger at the purposeful degradation.

Greer leads them into an antique surgical suite where Reese is manhandled down and Finch forced onto a low tech, ancient surgical table. Greer looks around at them like a teacher surveying his classroom and proclaims, “I have procured a board-certified orthopedic surgeon Mr. Finch, have threatened him suitably so he will perform to the highest standards.

“Unfortunately, this procedure will take place without benefits of modern medicine. General anesthesia you see, is a luxury, rather than a right.” He wait for a beat, to see if they respond, then continues. “Should you survive the process, we can discuss your future cooperation.”

Reese grits his teeth against a harsh retort or a full body explosion of anger at the calculated torture Greer is suggesting. He looks over at Harold and sees the paranoid man looks like all his worst imaginings have just come true.

He is placed sideways onto the rusted surgical table. This shakes the man from his shocked stupor and he struggles madly, arms and legs and words flying fast with a desperate edge. Reese too has jumped forward, hampered by his bindings but no less eager to show his captors his strength. Reese is able to knock into a guard and follow him to the ground before several sets of hands pin him.

He cranes his neck up and through the chaos sees Harold is frenzied in a way Reese could never imagine, spitting and crying out and begging and pleading, a lapse in control of closely guarded emotions. For a brief moment they pour from him as water from a broken dam, then slowly peter out until he lies limp on the table.

One of the agents is wearing a navy lab coat and scrub pants. As Harold is restrained this man begins to unbutton coat and jacket and strip them from Harold’s torso. He lets out a forlorn sound but has no ability to struggle as they strip his layers. After the overcoat and jacket the agent pulls off the silk waistcoat, soaked through from the snow and mud. The assistant restraining Harold rolls him this way and that to help. Harold’s tie is wrenched off next and Reese bucks and twists in loathing and hatred for these evil men. To see Harold being stripped clinically is agonizing.

Reese can only sit in impotence.

They rip the pressed shirt off forcefully and cufflinks scatter. This leaves him huddled in his plain white undershirt, thin arms glowing palely in harsh light.

Reese shudders as dispassionate fingers unbuckle the belt and wool trousers next, pulling them down as one in a rough stroke. Harold’s eyes are clamped shut and he is drawing into himself . He is left in dark boxers and the snug undershirt, legs shaking and furled. His left calf and quadriceps are slightly atrophied with scars on the axial surface.

The undress stops there and Harold is secured to the table with great swaths of clear plastic wrap that pin him firmly to it like shrink-wrapped grocery item. Reese sees his scrunched eyes and pretends not to notice the man is silently weeping.

Reese tries to rise again, shake the hands off him but is rewarded with a sharp kick and duct tape. They secure his arms and legs together behind him so he is in a contorted shape, then cover his mouth and chin, and a generous portion on his neck which impedes his breathing a bit. He is left on the floor like a broken toy and cannot move more than a slight rock to and fro. His own eyes are tearing up in frustration and anger and fear for the gentle man trapped on the table.

A window is cut in the plastic wrap and a portion of Finch’s shorts along his hip. The area is scrubbed three times with betadine and lined with battered blue drapes from a sterile pack. A balding man is marched into the room, hands clasped to his gowned chest sterilely. He too is crying and resisting the men pushing him. “I will not do this, it is against my oath.” He blubbers.

Greer is stood back and watches everything dispassionately. He steps forward now and simply says, “Shall I order your wife and child killed then?”

This takes the wind out of the surgeon’s sails. He slumps against the table and sobs for a second. He has just gotten control when he looks at his patient and locks gazes with Finch, whose staring eyes are large, moist and preternatural, his lashes quivering in fear and anticipation. The surgeon rears back but there is someone behind him to stop this, a dark headed woman in a balaclava. “Get on with it buddy.” She growls.

“You’re insane, this is torture, I will not, cannot…”. The surgeon is helpless and his hands are trembling so as to not be functional.

Greer says, “Your choice doctor. Either do this surgery or you and your family will be killed.”

“For the love of God, haven’t you anesthetics?” The man wails.

“He will have no relief unless he agrees to help my Associate.”

Harold is vacuous and does not interact or respond. He has withdrawn deep inside.

Reese is screaming muffled curses behind his gag.

Greer motions to the women and she roughly pushes a set of film radiographs onto an ancient viewing box. She gives the surgeon a glare.

He studies the films through teary vision. Then shakily grasps the number ten scalpel blade, places it on its handle and reluctantly positions it over old surgical scars. He presses experimentally, testing the tissue, then quickly incises through epidermis, dermis, and subcuticular tissue in one practiced sweep. Finch chokes on his shout and arches against the restraints, the table shivers and shakes.

The surgeon cries silently as he bluntly dissects tissue revealing white periosteum with the orthopedic implant that is grown over by calloused bone. He touches his hemostats to the implant to find the defect.

Finch starts a howl that begins low and gains in pitch until it is a keen. He does not scream or beg, just the quiet, animal-like noise.

“Oh, God…” The surgeon wails.

Finch is pliant now, almost blissfully unconscious.

Reese has seen horrible events, things he wants to wipe from memory, but he thinks this is the worst. It is inconceivable to witness this happen to the proud, compassionate genius he has come to know. Reese wishes that Finch would faint, that the man’s strong will would give out and he could be away from this suffering.

The surgeon shakes his head in denial and probes the plate again. He skillfully disengages four screws with his surgical drill, then pulls the plate off with a wet sound, two separate pieces where the break is. This all takes less than a minute.

Finch is almost gone from this place.

The surgeon places a new plate over the new/old fracture site. He begins to screw the plate down, five screws into the same holes previously used, but skips the sixth screw where the original stripped and broken piece remains in the bone. He will leave it and hope for the best. The surgeon’s job is easy now as he closes the tissue in three layers and then collapses backwards in a dead faint himself. The whole procedure over in ten minutes.

Harold mumbles something unintelligibly, then repeats it clearer, “Never help.”

Greer scowls deeply and storms from the room. They will need a new plan now.

Watching Harold strapped to the table, a neat row of sutures along his abductor region, Reese has never felt more helpless. The rage he feels is equal to that when he discovered Jessica’s fate and he feels like falling off the edge again, escaping such tragedy in any way possible. But Harold needs him and the man lying there is alive and defiant despite the horror he has been through.

In a final indignity the room is slowly emptied and Harold and Reese are left in their respective positions with no assistance. The only sound now the muffles yells from Reese and the hitched breaths from Finch.

But the masked women is still in the room.

She whips her hat off, shakes her full hair once and looks at each of them with a grim frown. “Fancy meeting you here boys.”

It is Shaw.

Her eyes are tired and black circles ring them. Her posture is slumped and she is emaciated.

“Can’t dawdle or may look suspicious. Long story short, I work for Samaritan now and I’m supposed to break you.” She leans in close to Reese who is staring at her unblinkingly and trying to decide if he’s had a mental collapse.

She gives him a wink and repeats, “Yeah, I work for the big bad now.” She jerks her head to the security camera mounted near the door.

Reese nods to show he understands her hint. She stands, reluctantly turns to the lump shivering on the table.

“Sorry boss-man, had to be done.”

Finch is staring at her, confused. He blinks several times and squints but his gaze soon turns dewy as he wanders back into semi-consciousness.

“Gotta go for now. Whoops.” She bangs the surgical tray on her way out and it falls to the floor.

It is silent now and Reese can only sit and watch the fall of Finch’s narrow chest through his sweaty shirt. Finch does not meet his eyes and continues to gaze half lidded at nothing.

Reese moves closer and twists and turns until the surgical scalpel is against his taped wrists and starts rubbing against the blade.

He rolls to his feet rubbing his wrists, rips off the tape over his face, leaning on the table for support. He uses the now dull blade to hack at the cellophane binding Harold from shoulders to knees.

Harold shifts and responds now, twisting his upper body somewhat to see Reese lent over him.

“Quite the mess we’re in, Harold.”

Reese has him free now and gently rolls him so he is lying flat on his back, still shaking.

Harold is clammy and his eyes distant but he mumbles back politely. “Thank you, Mr. Reese.”

Reese pulls the overcoat from the pile of discarded clothing and drapes it over Finch. For the first time since Reese met him he thinks Finch looks feeble and old . He feels a dread wash over him and shuts his eyes against the site.

This train of thought is soon interrupted however as Harold whispers, “I am ready to escape whenever you are.”

Reese is surprised by this but humors the man. “You got a plan?”

“Always.” The pursued lips are cracked and tremor but Finch’s expression is unbroken.

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Indeed. It’s as simple as this. I intend to hack Samaritan.”

Reese waits a moment and thinks Harold is delusional from pain and shock. But the man’s gaze is firm and resolute.

“How?”

Incredibly, Harold’s lips twist unevenly into a smile and rasp, “Why, with Ms. Shaw’s assistance, and yours.”

He looks anything but a savant hacker right now, but damned if Reese doesn’t feel a hint of pity for the evil AI. It won't stand a chance.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I finished this several weeks ago and when I read the newest report about the cancelation of the show AND the delayed airing of season 5, I lost all steam. Knowing that this will sit unfinished forever I decided to post it as is, incomplete but some action, some whump, some feels, and perhaps to be finished later. Better than rotting on a harddrive like season five.


End file.
